Sanity vs Insanity

While reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, the theme of sanity vs insanity became evident as the novel progressed.  The story of Antoinette Cosway was narrated by various people.  At times this point of view change was confusing, but I think it definitely alluded the idea of insanity.

As a young girl, Antoinette experienced hatred towards white slave owners after the Emancipation Act was passed in Jamaica.  Her family was the center of hateful jeers and gossip.  This caused her mother to become depressed and antisocial, which initiated her reputation of being mentally insane. She was then remarried to Mr. Mason after her first husband Mr. Cosway died.  A mob set fire and destroyed their house and ended up killing her younger brother.  This event caused Antoinette's mother to go off the deep end.  She was sent away to live with an older black couple far away from everyone.  Antoinette was sent to a convent where she spent her teenage years.  She visited her mother once and saw the level of insanity the fire had caused.  After her mother died, she was married to Rochester, an Englishman who came to Jamaica in order to find a wife.  He hears rumors about Antoinette's past and questions her sanity.  She then gets poison from her former servant, Christophine, and poisons Rochester.  During this time, he then slept with their maid Amelie and Antoinette left in a rage.  Rochester believes she is insane and forces her to come back to England where he locks her in a room with a 24/7 "babysitter".  The novel ends with a dream-like reality where Antoinette sets the house on fire and escapes.

It was difficult to fully understand which perspective was correct: Antoinette or Rochester.  From Rochester's narration, his talk with Daniel about how she had relations with her cousin, the multiple deaths of her mother, and the legitimacy of her father.  Was Rochester in the wrong for drugging her and forcing her back to England where she could receive medical attention? At the same time, Antoinette did poison him and attempt to hex him in Jamaica.  Rochester's defense was viable, but at the same time questionable.

This leads me to evaluate Antoinette's side of the story.  Her childhood was indeed traumatic and it is understandable for her to have emotional baggage associated with that.  The question is whether she was actually insane or not.  This was tough to decide while reading the novel.  Her relationship with Rochester was grey in the sense of how it came to be or why they were married in the first place as she is standoffish and quiet around him.  Trying to poison him was also a red flag for me as it seems extreme or insane to do that just to fix her marriage, which didn't work very well as he then slept with their servant.  Her reoccurring nightmares about being chased through the same forest could be an indicator towards her insanity.  Was it the stress from her past that made her this way or was it Rochester that turned her into this deranged woman?

Overall, the novel made it unclear who was insane and who was in the wrong.  The different perspectives made it interesting to read as it made you pick a side and form your own opinion about the characters.  I think that it was written this way for that reason, to let the reader decide who was insane.  In my opinion, Antoinette was insane due to her childhood between her mother, Mr. Mason, her cousin, Christophine, and many others.  She was emotionally scarred and this transferred over to her relationship with Rochester.  The amount of stress and baggage Antoinette carried around with her suggested that she was emotionally and mentally unstable and Rochester had married the wrong woman, which he did not handle in the correct manner.